On Thursday night, they learned he was the gunman in Minnesota's deadliest workplace shooting. Police say Engeldinger fatally shot five people and injured three at Accent Signage Systems in Minneapolis before turning the gun on himself.
"It's not unusual when you're isolating yourself, which we know that he did, that eventually the only people you have left is your family and your co-workers, and often your paranoia translates to them," Sue Abderholden, a mental health organization executive who is serving as spokeswoman for Engeldinger's family, said Saturday.
Police say the 36-year-old Engeldinger shot and killed Reuven Rahamim, the founder of Accent Signage Systems; employees Ronald Edberg, Rami Cooks and Jacob Beneke; and Keith Basinski, a UPS driver who made a delivery at the wrong time. Two other employees remained hospitalized, one in critical condition and the other in serious condition.
The officers who responded to what Police Chief Tim Dolan called a "hellish scene" eventually found Engeldinger's body in the basement. Officers who searched his south Minneapolis home later Thursday found another gun and packaging for 10,000 rounds of ammunition.
Police and company representatives have not yet said why Engeldinger was fired from a job he had held since the late 1990s.
Jim Dow, a sales representative who frequently visited the business, said Saturday that he'd spoken to Accent employees and family members of victims. He said they told him that in recent months, Engeldinger had been running afoul of managers with confrontational behavior and unexplained absences from work.
"He was getting mouthy, belligerent," Dow said. Cooks, who's been described as Rahamim's right-hand man, "would take him aside and tell him that's not acceptable," Dow said. "He'd straighten up for a while and then this would crop up again."
Dolan said it was clear that Engeldinger targeted some victims while bypassing others. Many of those killed or injured were management.
Engeldinger wasn't always a problematic employee.
Barry Lawrence, an ex-employee, trained Engeldinger on a sign engraving machine and recalled that he was "sharp, intelligent." He said though Engeldinger mostly kept to himself, he'd occasionally join his co-workers for drinks after work.
But, upon hearing of the shooting, Lawrence said he had a gut reaction.
"To tell you the truth, my first thought was Andy," said Lawrence, who left Accent in 2003. "He was pleasant enough to work around, but he just seemed a little off all the time. You get a feeling about people, nothing you can put your finger on."
Abderholden, the executive director of Minnesota's chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said she didn't know when Engeldinger's family first became worried that he had a mental illness. Two years ago, Chuck and Carolyn Engeldinger — who raised Andy and his two siblings in the Minneapolis suburb of Richfield — enrolled in NAMI's free, 12-week "Family to Family" course.
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